Monday, October 29, 2012

Who doesn't LOVE navajo tacos? And we all know everybody loves not having to cook dinner and clean up. If you haven't had a navajo taco, now's your chance to eat some yummy food and help raise money for Miss Tanya in the process.

We have some pretty amazing ladies working hard to put this together. They have gotten donation after donation for the food and drinks, as well as the amazing items for the silent auction and raffle.
We have so many items....where to start? Well to name a few....

Homemade cedar chest, built by my amazing dad, so you know it will require 3 large men to move and will hold up for years. Just kidding on the 3 large men.

Quilt ladder, also made by my dad.

Quilt~you can't have a quilt without something to put it on. So bid on both!

Photo shoots

Car washes~might want to hang on to these for the yucky weather sure to come.

Mary Kay products

A gorgeous necklace designed by Helmut the Jewler especially for this event. Holy Cow, right! Yay!

And so, so, so many more.

You just might be able to do some Christmas shopping while eating dinner. Who could pass that up. Better bring your $$$, you don't want someone to out bid you. Come and join us, and bring the entire family!!

Thursday, October 25, 2012

This round hasn't been too bad. I started out with blood work on Monday. Which my WBC came back in the 5's, which was higher than what I started out as. So that's great news!!! I was able to receive treatment this week. I am going 3 days of chemotherapy and on day 4 I go back in to get my Neulasta injection. This injection helps keep my WBC levels up while the chemo is going through my body. This helps keep my levels at healthy ranges and out of the danger zone, (so I don't have to wear a mask when I am out in public or avoid visitors). Today is officially the end of my second round of chemotherapy. So today marks the official last day of treatment, FOR ROUND 2!!!

Whoot Whoot!!! Since Chemo was pushed back a week due to my WBC levels, my actual graduation date for Chemo won't be until my Birthday, (January 17th) but what a great Birthday present to be done with treatment officially!! :)

I have been feeling a little nauseous all week. My gag reflexes have been on high alert for the past few days. Which makes eating a chore to say the least. The best way I can explain it is I am STARVING, like ALL THE TIME...I am nauseous at the same time, since I am so nauseous, and with my gag reflexes working over time I don't want to eat and get sick. It's a give or take situation. Ha ha ha sometimes I can eat like nobodies business and others I am choking it down. Which is frustrating!!!!! I am STARVING after all! ha ha

Radiation has been going well! It makes me very sleepy after treatment and I have been sleeping half the day. Poor Mom, I am sure she is bored and heck. One more reason I can't wait to finish treatment. I am almost done with Radiation, 7 for days and I am done!!! Whoot Whoot!!!!! I can NOT wait to graduate and ring that dang bell. Graduation day will be on November 5th about 8am. Ha ha I am not sending out graduation announcements or anything! Ha ha just know it's happening and I am pretty excited about it! I am one step closer to kicking Cancer's ass and being Cancer Free!!!! YAHOO!!! YAHOO!!!

Well that's all I have for now!! I hope this post finds you all healthy, happy and well.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

I know someone of you see my facebook posting and some get text messages from Mom on my progress...So you all might be aware of what is going on with me this week, and some of you might not. So I thought I would post what's going on this week with me so I make sure to keep everyone informed.

I went in Monday (10/15/12) for Chemotherapy and I had my blood work done and they told me, my WBC (White Blood Cell) count was too low. Which is what fights off infection. Normal Counts are between 2.20-4.80...mine have been about 4.18 since chemo started, until Monday. It was 0.67 which is LOW. This being said they told me I needed to be careful being around groups of people, I needed to wear a mask if I am around groups of people. I made the decision to not have any visitors over until my WBC count was back up to normal. They postponed the treatment for now until next Monday. 10/22/12) I had to get injections Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week, Labs drawn tomorrow (Friday) and if my labs are back up then I will be able to get chemo on Monday.

I saw my chemo doctor yesterday and I was told that not only will I need to be getting these injections at the end of each round of chemo, but they are also going to be reducing the dose of chemo. I will explain it to you guys as it was explained to me. Every person who receives chemo, their body will react to the chemo a different way. Some bodies react really well to chemo and some react not at all to chemo. My body just so happens to react VERY WELL to chemo, which is WHY, my counts dropped so low. When you react to chemo like I did, your body is soaking up the chemo, which means my immune system takes a hit. By them reducing the chemo by 20%, this will hopefully help my body from my levels dropping so low. IF they don't drop the chemo 20%, and they continue to keep treating me, my levels will eventually drop so low that I become in more danger than not. Which can kill me. So even thought they reduce the chemo by 20%, it will still be doing the same job its doing now.

I hope this means the side effects will be less? Who knows...one can pray and hope this is true! :)

I will for sure keep you all updated on the progress what what my levels come out as. They told me with the injections my numbers will be off the charts, and they have every reason to believe that my levels will be more than normal come Monday. :)

Monday, October 15, 2012

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Good night!!! (I'm not sure what time of day your reading this post) haha

First off I want to Thank Each and Everyone who went to the 5K Fun Run this weekend. It was a big success and It's most appreciated. We raised almost $2000 dollars! Thank You, Thank You, THANK YOU!! We still have shirts left over, so if anyone is interested in buying them, they are going for $12 dollars. Let me know if you want one. They are the shirts from the Run, sizes are Med, LG, XL and ONE 2XL.

As for treatment, I had Radiation and Chemotherapy today. Radiation has been going ok. Last Friday (10/12/12) was a rough day. I Went in for radiation, they couldn't get me set right on the table, so I ended up being there on the table for about 2 hours. Like I have said before, this is the most uncomfortable position in THE WORLD! By the time I left I was more than irriatated. I wasn't looking forward to going back this week, but today went wonderful! :) Thank you Lord!! As for Chemotherapy today I was suppose to start my second round, but I was unable to get treatment. I have what they call Neutropenia. What this is, is when your white cell count is too low, this being low causes some concern when it comes to infection or catching a cold. Since my levels are low this means if I were to catch a cold I wouldn't be able to fight off an infection. Which is very dangerous. So we will postpone my second round of treatment to next week. I will get a injection in my arm today, tomorrow and Wednesday. The injectino is called Neupogen. Neupogen helps my body raise the white cell counts to normal levels. I can't have treatment until my levels are back to normal. I will have blood work drawn on Friday to see where my levels are and if they are normal then treatment will start back again on Monday.

Due to treatment, my hair has been falling out a lot! I mean a LOT. I couldn't handle it any longer, I was picking hair off myselft, whatever I was sitting on, clothes, food EVERYTHING!! It was just becoming too much and driving me crazy. So I had to just shave it off. I shaved it off last night. It's a huge adjustment. My head has been so sore lately. Really sore lately. It feels like I have had my hair in a pony tail for like 13 days and just took it out and it's just really sore. It makes it hard to sleep at night cuz just rubbing my hair hurts. Once it all falls out it will be much better and not so sore. I think I can pull the bald look off a little bit. haha :) I still think my face looks fat! haha

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Hey all! Today is the last day for early registration for the 5k Fun Run! You can of course still participate in the run...it's $20 today and $25 tomorrow and the day of the event! Please please please help support a great cause! We are sooo exicted for this event! We have about 10 gifts to give away from generous businesses on the mountain! Each PAID registration will be entered into each drawing for the gifts! We have dinners, bowling, movies, massage...all kinds of goodies so you don't want to miss it! We will have shirts for sale IF we have any left! Look forward to seeing you all there! Please email or call me if the link to the registration form HERE doesn't work for some reason and I get it to you. We have goody...goodie (?) bags for each PAID registration...so you want to get registered!

Monday, October 8, 2012

WOW!!! What an AMAZING turnout the Zumbathon had! They raised over $600 and the owner, Chaz Hatch, of Hatch Toyota, matched the amount raised...bringing the total amount for Hope for Tanya to over $1200!!!! THANK YOU ZUMBA GIRLS AND HATCH FOR YOUR AMAZING CONTRIBUTION!!!!

Friday, October 5, 2012

Katie Lohman from Premier Designs, Katrina Johnson and Tyla Francis are hosting this fun day with the girls! Of course if you aren't a girl you can still come...i'm sure your girlfriend, best friend, wife, significant other would appreciate some pretty jewelry too! I am VERY excited for the party! Let's make this the BEST show for Tanya so she gets not only the profits but gets spoiled with a lot of FREE jewelry.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Well...tonight was THE DAY!! I think we did pretty well! We had about 30 people at our "table" and ﻿the Manager was nice enough to ring up EVERY TABLE in the restaurant under "HOPE FOR TANYA"!!! This was after Miss Brinley passed out the flyers to every table and explained what it was for! Just love that little Peanut! So, by Thursday night we should have the amount that we raised!!

A HUGE thank you to Anton Sports in Tempe, Arizona who helped me create these shirts after a bazillion emails, changes and mock-ups! You guys are awesome! An even bigger thank you to Terri Wade and Becca Seeley who came up with the design! WE LOVE IT! Thank you to Mark Lashinski at Modern Industries who told my Husband, Dustin about a "side job" on some of their machines! If it weren't for Mark & his hike to in the Grand Canyon we would have NEVER heard about you guys! Thank you everyone...you are all AMAZING!! Soooo...here they are! Don't you just love???? I do!

**shirts are only available (currently) if you register for the 5k Fun Run (or walk)! IF we have any extra we will be selling them at the event...NEXT SATURDAY!!!**

I wanted to give a little update on how things have been going. I know it's been while since I last blogged. Last week I was unable to get Radiation 3 of the 5 days. Two days due to my intestines not lining up and the other due to the machine being down. So I had a nice little weekend of just relaxing without treatment!! It sure was nice!!!!!! :) NO early morning appointments, no labs, no doing nothing but relaxing. Mom went with Ashley to the Mountain this past weekend so it was just Scott and I at home with the puppies. :) Bailey had her surgery on Friday so she was recovering with me all weekend. :) We decided to have her fixed. So we now have three sterile females in the house! ha ha I joke, but it's true. :)

I am finished with my first round of chemo, so I have two weeks free, with just radiation. It's been nice not having to run all over town. My second chemo round will start on Monday October 15th. My graduation day will be on January 9th just before my birthday! Depending on how I feel and how my doctor reacts when I say I'm having a BIG OL PARTY for my graduation/birthday!!! So get your party pants ready!!!
I am feeling great! I can't wait until my belly is fully healed from surgery and I am able to sleep on my belly, I miss that so much. I am slowly getting there, I am actually able to lay half on my side and half of my belly. It's not the same still ha ha. I was taking a multi vitamin and it must have been too strong, It was exhausting me. I had no energy and I wanted to just sleep all day long. Once I stopped taking it and changed it to just a normal multi vitamin I have so much more energy and I feel great! :) I am able to actually go all day without a nap! I have been loosing weight, I am down 8 pounds from the day I had surgery. I don't know really what's making me lose weight cuz I have a better appetite than Scott, and God knows that man LOVES his food! :) Just the other day we had finished eating, I polished off an entire FOOT LONG SUB from SUBWAY, and a couple hours later I look at him and say "I'm hungry"are you? His jaw drops and he says "No!!!! How can you be so hungry you had a FOOT LONG" ha ha It's great that I have such a large appetite! I guess Cancer patients don't usually have one, and that's why they lose weight. I met with the dietitian today and she was impressed I was feeling so great! ha ha I guess Cancer patients don't usually feel great either! ha ha :) She said the reason I am probably so hungry is because my body is healing from surgery and all that healing uses so much energy so I burn a lot of calories. She wanted me to be on a high protein diet, which I knew already. She gave me a list of foods that would help hit high marks! ha ha Overall I feel great! I hope and pray this feeling sticks with me all throughout treatment. I will for sure keep you all posted.

Please remember today is the Chili's give back day, so go have lunch, dinner, desert, HAPPY HOUR at Chili's and mention Hope for Tanya!!! Keep in mind as well you can do this as a take out orders too!

We have a lot of fundraisers going on from Chili's Gives back to Coach Purse Raffles, so keep an eye on the blog for the latest and greatest fundraisers!!!

Monday, October 1, 2012

TOMORROW IS Chili's Give Back Night for Miss Tanya! Thank you in advance for all your help! Chili's will be donating 10% of all sales made on Tuesday, October 2nd ALL DAY(at ALL East Valley & Payson locations), if you bring in the below flyers (2nd one so you can cut and share) OR mention you are eating for "HOPE FOR TANYA"! Print & post everywhere around work...help us spread the word!